"Peter Masson" wrote:
"Roland Perry" wrote

In London in the 40's you could post a letter in the morning informing
someone you'd be round for afternoon tea. By the 70's you could still
post a letter at 9pm in a town in the Southeast and expect it to be
delivered to someone in another town by 8am.

In 1970 I could post a letter at the main post office in Oxford up to
midnight and it would be delivered in South East London at breakfast time.

And now you can send an email, text, tweet, IM, DM, usenet post, etc,
usually for little or no charge, and have it delivered anywhere in the
world in seconds. With that sort of competition, no-one's going to pay for
the huge network of people, sorting offices and vans that would be needed
to maintain the old style of physical mail services, that delivered locally
in hours, from a previous era.

Just be grateful that we still have deliveries to everyone's front door,
six days a week, across the whole country, at a standard price. In years to
come, we'll look back in amazement at that level of service. Most other
countries no longer offer it.

In article ,
Peter Masson wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote

In London in the 40's you could post a letter in the morning informing
someone you'd be round for afternoon tea. By the 70's you could still post
a letter at 9pm in a town in the Southeast and expect it to be delivered to
someone in another town by 8am.

In 1970 I could post a letter at the main post office in Oxford up to
midnight and it would be delivered in South East London at breakfast time.

obrail I could put a letter in the posting box on the side of any TPO
well after midnight, provided it was going in the right direction :-)
/obrail

Nick
--
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

On 12/03/2014 21:23, Recliner wrote:
"Peter Masson" wrote:
"Roland Perry" wrote

In London in the 40's you could post a letter in the morning informing
someone you'd be round for afternoon tea. By the 70's you could still
post a letter at 9pm in a town in the Southeast and expect it to be
delivered to someone in another town by 8am.

In 1970 I could post a letter at the main post office in Oxford up to
midnight and it would be delivered in South East London at breakfast time.

And now you can send an email, text, tweet, IM, DM, usenet post, etc,
usually for little or no charge, and have it delivered anywhere in the
world in seconds. With that sort of competition, no-one's going to pay for
the huge network of people, sorting offices and vans that would be needed
to maintain the old style of physical mail services, that delivered locally
in hours, from a previous era.

Just be grateful that we still have deliveries to everyone's front door,
six days a week, across the whole country, at a standard price. In years to
come, we'll look back in amazement at that level of service. Most other
countries no longer offer it.


On-line sales and junk mail has bee the saviour of the postal service
apparently.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

On 12/03/2014 21:32, Nick Leverton wrote:
In article ,
Peter Masson wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote

In London in the 40's you could post a letter in the morning informing
someone you'd be round for afternoon tea. By the 70's you could still post
a letter at 9pm in a town in the Southeast and expect it to be delivered to
someone in another town by 8am.

In 1970 I could post a letter at the main post office in Oxford up to
midnight and it would be delivered in South East London at breakfast time.

obrail I could put a letter in the posting box on the side of any TPO
well after midnight, provided it was going in the right direction :-)
/obrail


It was hanging on the hook waiting for the scoop that was the drag…


--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

On 12/03/2014 20:51, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:36:47 on
Wed, 12 Mar 2014, Peter Masson
remarked:
How it used to be:
When my grandparents were courting, before WW1, my grandfather was in
the Army, and didn't know until during the morning whether he'd be
free to meet my grandmother that evening - so he'd send her a postcard
which would be delivered during the afternoon. This was in Cork.

In London in the 40's you could post a letter in the morning informing
someone you'd be round for afternoon tea.

Although to be fair, why would anyone want to do that nowadays? It's a
bit like the demise of passenger services on canals when the railways
came along.

People from before WWI would no doubt have spent all day sending each
other cat videos instead of postcards had the technology existed.


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 20:14:29 on Wed, 12
Mar 2014, Phil Cook remarked:
SD also seems to have an informal "not before 7am", just so they don't
wake people up too early!

It has to get to the office and be processed before it can be issued to
the driver.

But even if they get it earlier, the drivers I talked to (in my PJs)
said they didn't try to deliver before 7am.

As for the rest of the deliveries, they do seem to have crept from
7.30am to noon over the last 20yrs (my anecdata).

Royal Mail went to first and second deliveries to just one some time
ago. The last letter is in theory about 14.00, which counts as
lunchtime. The first may be something like 10.30, but it will depend
where you are on the round.

So they have half the number of deliveries, and the first is a
minimum of around three hours later than before. This is why people
think they aren't getting as good a service any more.

Because technology has overtaken them. Get real!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 16:23:21 -0500, Recliner wrote:

"Peter Masson" wrote:
"Roland Perry" wrote

In London in the 40's you could post a letter in the morning informing
someone you'd be round for afternoon tea. By the 70's you could still
post a letter at 9pm in a town in the Southeast and expect it to be
delivered to someone in another town by 8am.

In 1970 I could post a letter at the main post office in Oxford up to
midnight and it would be delivered in South East London at breakfast time.

And now you can send an email, text, tweet, IM, DM, usenet post, etc,
usually for little or no charge, and have it delivered anywhere in the
world in seconds. With that sort of competition, no-one's going to pay for
the huge network of people, sorting offices and vans that would be needed
to maintain the old style of physical mail services, that delivered locally
in hours, from a previous era.

Just be grateful that we still have deliveries to everyone's front door,
six days a week, across the whole country, at a standard price. In years to
come, we'll look back in amazement at that level of service. Most other
countries no longer offer it.

I'd rather cut deliveries down to three or even two a week if it would cut the cost of postage.

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 20:35:22 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 20:14:29 on Wed, 12
Mar 2014, Phil Cook remarked:
SD also seems to have an informal "not before 7am", just so they don't
wake people up too early!

It has to get to the office and be processed before it can be issued to
the driver.

But even if they get it earlier, the drivers I talked to (in my PJs)
said they didn't try to deliver before 7am.

As for the rest of the deliveries, they do seem to have crept from
7.30am to noon over the last 20yrs (my anecdata).

Royal Mail went to first and second deliveries to just one some time
ago. The last letter is in theory about 14.00, which counts as
lunchtime. The first may be something like 10.30, but it will depend
where you are on the round.

So they have half the number of deliveries, and the first is a minimum
of around three hours later than before. This is why people think they
aren't getting as good a service any more.

It can depend on which end of the round the postman starts at. When
one delivery a day came in it was evident in some places that the
round was being reversed every few weeks with the result that half the
round was getting the post earlier and the other half later. For some
time now (at least with mine) the delivery time seems to be mostly
unchanging.
The apparently delayed start time possibly also gets out of paying for
working unsocial hours.

Optimist wrote:

Just be grateful that we still have deliveries to everyone's front door,
six days a week, across the whole country, at a standard price. In years
to
come, we'll look back in amazement at that level of service. Most other
countries no longer offer it.

I'd rather cut deliveries down to three or even two a week if it would cut
the
cost of postage.

Sadly it probably wouldn't. And with online shopping such a key part of the
Royal Mail's business there'd be fierce opposition to reducing the speed of
delivery or else a decamp to incompetent couriers.

--
My blog: http://adf.ly/4hi4c

On 13/03/2014 00:21, Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Optimist wrote:

Just be grateful that we still have deliveries to everyone's front door,
six days a week, across the whole country, at a standard price. In years
to
come, we'll look back in amazement at that level of service. Most other
countries no longer offer it.

I'd rather cut deliveries down to three or even two a week if it would cut
the
cost of postage.

Sadly it probably wouldn't. And with online shopping such a key part of the
Royal Mail's business there'd be fierce opposition to reducing the speed of
delivery or else a decamp to incompetent couriers.


Why use incompetent couriers when there are plenty of competent ones
available.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail